Polyvinyl tubing is commonly used for a variety of products such as fencing, decking and lawn furniture. In these and other similar applications it is often required to process the tubing through multiple manufacturing steps to produce a single complete part. For example, in many applications notches must be formed into two or more of the tube sidewalls in order to permit an end portion of one piece of tubing to be inserted and locked within a cooperating aperture of another piece. In one exemplary application, the notched end of one tubular polyvinyl fence rail is inserted into a receiving aperture in a tubular polyvinyl fence post, thereby forming an easy to assemble joint.
The processing of such components often requires the polyvinyl tubing to go through several repetitions in a single position notching die to create a complete section of tubing. In such a process, the workpiece (e.g. a piece of hollow polyvinyl tubing or some other tubing material) is aligned and inserted into the notching die. The die is cycled to create a notch on a first surface, and then the workpiece is removed from the die and reoriented. The reoriented workpiece is again inserted into the die to create another notch on a second surface. This process is repeated until the desired number and location of notches is achieved.
In order to improve processing efficiencies, it may be desirable to create multiple notches without having to remove and reorient the workpiece.